“But he’s very helpful.”
“Yep, very helpful.” Ben met her gaze again. His midnight dark eyes held so much—the pain of an ancient being, the faint flicker of hope deep down that Rhianne suspected never went away.
“I am trying to say thank you.” Rhianne gave him a shaky smile. “I’m not good at it.”
“You’re Tuil Erdannan. Everyone else is dust to you.”
“You are not.”
Ben’s lips parted at her statement. He started to answer but his words died, and he simply looked at her.
Rhianne’s heart thumped. Ben had beautiful eyes in a face that held her attention. She thought of his strong hands on hers, first pulling her to safety in the dungeon, then thrusting her fingers under the cold water when she’d burned them.
He helped people. That must be his purpose. Rhianne didn’t know much about goblins, because they’d died out or disappeared before she’d been born. Ben had obviously found a way to survive in the human world.
She knew she had no business feeling safe around him. Ben claimed that Lady Aisling had sent him, but she had no way to communicate with her mother and find out if this was so. For all Rhianne knew, Ben was working with her father in this mad scheme to get her married to Walther. Ben might be softening her up so she’d trust him, before he delivered her back to the hoch alfar.
For some reason, Rhianne knew this wasn’t the case. The rage in Ben’s eyes when he spoke of the hoch alfar was real. That rage touched on an old wound, one he kept buried.
Rhianne likewise had no business finding beauty in his eyes. Ben wasn’t Tuil Erdannan. Not for her.
But the thought of his powerful hands on her body, perhaps sliding over her soapy skin in the bathtub, warming her breasts while he pulled her to him to take her mouth …
A shrill peal of a bell sliced sharply through her daydream. Rhianne jumped. Her fork slipped from her fingers and clattered against her plate.
Ben raised a quick hand. “Just my phone. Don’t worry.” He pulled the cell phone he’d used before from his pocket, unfolded it as it pealed again, and put it to his ear. “Yeah?”
A voice sounded, tinny and far away. Ben’s brows slammed together, and he glared out the window as he listened, as though he could see the speaker there.
“How the hell did he find out so fast? What? … Yeah, yeah, I know. Thanks for the heads-up, Sean. Sure. See ya.”
The device went dark when Ben pushed a button, then he folded it and set it gently on the table.
“Company’s coming,” he announced.
Chapter Four
Rhianne’s sudden apprehension made Ben’s anger surge. She’d been through trauma—she needed to heal, not be interrogated.
But that wasn’t how things worked in the Shifter world. Shifters lived on the edge of danger all the time, and they investigated any new threat, or potential threat, immediately.
How Dylan had found out so quickly that Rhianne had been sent here, Ben had no idea. Dylan just seemed to know things.
“It’s okay.” Ben laid a hand on Rhianne’s arm once more, trying to soothe her. Before today, he wouldn’t have dreamed of touching a Tuil Erdannan, but Rhianne was scared, uprooted, alone. “It’s only Shifters. You could blow them to dust if you wanted. They know that too.”
“Can I?” Rhianne did not pull away from him. “I’m not as gifted as my mother. I’ve always understood that.”
“Even a weak Tuil Erdannan is more powerful than Shifters. They’ll be aware. Don’t let them mess with your head. They like to do that.”
“Mess with my head?” Rhianne touched her thick red hair, which fell down her back in a loose braid.
“Not on the outside.” Ben tapped his temple. “On the inside. Dylan will look at you as though he knows everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen to you. He tries to make everyone go along with his picture of the world. To do whatever he wants. He’s a serious alpha, which might not mean anything if you’re not Shifter.”
“Dylan Morrissey?” Rhianne’s mouth quirked when Ben started in surprise. “My mother has mentioned him. She’s met him, and she keeps abreast of the Shifters and their situations. She became interested in them when the leopard Shifter—Jaycee?—came to her for help. Mother talks to Jaycee quite often, apparently.”
Ben felt a qualm. “Don’t tell Dylan that. I don’t want him up in Jaycee’s face. Not that Jaycee would betray to your mum anything that would harm Shifters, but Dylan’s touchy.” He considered. “Of course, watching Dylan try to get into Jaycee’s face might be fun. She’s loyal to her mate and her leader and no one else, including Dylan. She’d probably tell him to go lick himself. Big cat Shifters do what the hell they want, and now that Jaycee has a cub, she’s even more likely to tell everyone to back off.”
“The Morrissey family are big cat Shifters too, aren’t they?” Rhianne asked.
“Exactly. Not that wolves are much better, and don’t get me started on the bears.”
Rhianne’s smile dimpled her cheeks. Damn, she was gorgeous when she did that. Ben kept reminding himself who she was, what she was, but the needs in him didn’t care. Rhianne was a beautiful woman, alone with him, helpless …
All right, maybe not helpless. She could probably kick his ass if she tried. But she didn’t know the human world, or Shifters. He was her buffer against both.
Ben had never seen Rhianne at her mother’s house, which could mean she’d left home to have her own life. Lady Aisling could be pretty intense. Or maybe Lady Aisling had kept Rhianne out of the way for a reason. Like her own father being a danger to her?
Puzzling. There was more going on here than met the eye, and Ben had pretty good eyesight.
“Let’s finish breakfast,” he said. “Before Dylan shows up and ruins our appetites.”
“This is good.” Rhianne resumed her fork and devoured more eggs. “I’m surprised.”
“Now don’t break my heart.” Ben pressed his hand to his chest, feigning offense. “I worked damned hard on these eggs. And the toast. And the pig stomach.”
Her nose wrinkled in a cute way. “Don’t ruin it.”
She continued eating, complimenting his cooking by finishing everything on her plate and sopping up the last of the eggs with her toast. She even ate most of the bacon. Between the two of them, they consumed everything Ben had made.
“I guess getting captured and rescued makes you hungry,” Ben observed. “Rescuing is hungry work too.”
“Do you do it a lot?” Rhianne rose with him and carried her dishes to the sink. “Rescue people?”
“Unfortunately.” Ben took her plate and scrubbed it off under the running water. “I don’t mean I dislike rescuing people. I hate that others put them into situations where I have to do it.”
“I’m glad you came for me.”
The words were soft, the light in her eyes sincere. Ben’s chest felt tight, as though his heart was trying to climb into his throat. He whipped his attention back to the plates and scrubbed them as hard as he could.
“I’d like to see this place.” Rhianne had turned away, surveying the room.
Ben rinsed the plates and started stacking them in the dishwasher. “I take tourists around the downstairs and the grounds twice a week. Or at least I did until the dokk alfar made me their bitch. Jazz hired a new guide who hauls tourists out here from New Orleans. But I don’t mind showing you around. The house was built in the eighteenth century, beginning as a modest farmhouse, and growing to its present size by the turn of the nineteenth century.”
“No, I mean …”
Rhianne paced the middle of the big room, her gaze straying out the window to the trees and the glimpse of industrial lots beyond.
“This world,” she finished. “If it’s to be my prison, I want to know all about it.”
“Not prison.” Ben folded his arms and leaned against the counter. “You’re not locked in. This house is a place of refuge—it’s safe—but if you want to go somew
here else, you’re free to do so.” He’d have to go with her, though, because he didn’t trust the hoch alfar or her father not to sneak through from Faerie and try to grab her.
“It’s exile, then.” Rhianne ceased pacing, her braid swinging. “If my mother thinks Faerie is too dangerous for me, she’ll not let me back in.”
The distress in Rhianne’s eyes broke Ben’s heart. He knew exactly what it meant to wake up on this side of the gate, knowing he could never go back home, that he had to figure out this bizarre world of humans and survive in it. When he’d crossed, it had been about the year 1000, as they’d counted years in Europe, and he’d found chaos.
“I’ll show this world to you,” Ben offered. “We’ll go wherever you want. I have some places that are favorites. Favorites now, I mean. Things change.”
They’d changed a hell of a lot in the last thousand years. He realized that in Rhianne, he might have met someone who’d seen as much change as he had. Tuil Erdannan lived a long time.
Couldn’t really start off their relationship asking her age, though. Bad idea.
Ben made his tone light. “We’ll listen to Dylan try to convince us to do whatever he has in mind, and then I’ll take you out. How’s that?”
He’d intended to make her smile, but Rhianne gazed mournfully at her sweatpants and jacket covering the T-shirt Jasmine had picked up in New Orleans.
“I’ll need different clothes. This shirt seems to be telling everyone that it’s hot outside.”
Ben hid a grin. The heat level was rising in here, that was certain. “I’ll find you anything you want. I’m here to take care of you, love. Promise.”
* * *
It wasn’t long before Dylan showed up. Even though he in theory had to ride from Austin, which could be an eight-hour trip, Dylan seemed to cover distances in half the time as other mortals. True, he might have already been in Houston or thereabouts, making the rounds in his territory, but Ben swore he must have some Fae magic hidden up his sleeve.
Only an hour or so after Ben had cleaned up the kitchen and taken Rhianne on a tour of the house to distract her from her troubles, he heard a motorcycle roar to a stop outside. Not just one, but three. Dylan always brought backup.
Ben had been showing Rhianne the rear veranda, on which Jazz kept comfortable chairs, tables, and a small bookcase, and explaining to her about the ley lines that ran under the house. When Rhianne heard the engine noise, she swung around in alarm.
Ben took her hand. As she’d done when he’d pulled her from the cell, she closed her fingers around his, not letting go as he led her through the house and to the front door.
The house whispered. Ben touched the wall by the doorframe. “I know Dylan’s a pain in the ass, but we should probably talk to him. Put it this way, he’ll camp out here until I either let him in or go outside and see what he wants. I think Rhianne will be okay.”
He felt the weight of Rhianne’s stare. “Who are you talking to?”
“The house.” Ben gave the wall a pat. “If it doesn’t want to let them in, it won’t. It’s very protective. I think we’ll have to meet them on the porch.”
“I thought you said they were only Shifters.”
Ben bit back a laugh. “Yeah, but Dylan’s special. He usually doesn’t mess with me, so stick close.”
Rhianne’s puzzlement settled into caution. She kept hold of Ben’s hand as he opened the door and led Rhianne out onto the porch.
Dylan had already climbed off his motorcycle and stood waiting for the other two Shifters to join him. One was the huge form of Tiger and the third … Uh-oh. Liam.
Dylan had the smallest build of the three who approached the porch, though that wasn’t saying much. Despite this, Dylan had more power even than Tiger, who, well …
Tiger was big and bulky, with tiger-striped hair and a golden stare that could skewer you until you shriveled up and tried to find somewhere to run. But it didn’t matter if you ran because Tiger would catch you. He always did.
Liam Morrissey was Dylan’s oldest son. He resembled his father with his near-black hair and intensely blue eyes, tall body, and swagger. Dylan had honed his swagger into something subtly intimidating, but Liam, young, fairly newly mated, and father to a female cub who was his pride and joy—his arrogance had reached its height.
Liam now led the Shiftertown in Austin, having taken over from Dylan when Dylan had stepped down. Actually, Liam had kicked Dylan’s butt in a fight while Liam was going through issues, though Ben always wondered whether Dylan had let his son win. Dylan had much more freedom now to roam over the Morrissey territory, which was vast, and more time to annoy everyone inside it.
Both Morrisseys wore Collars—the chain with the Celtic knot pendant containing a mix of magic and technology that in theory controlled Shifters’ violent tendencies. Tiger wore a fake one—when he’d come to live in the Austin Shiftertown, Liam had tried to put a real one on him, and it had not gone well. They’d given Tiger a fake one to fool the humans, and life had been better for all concerned.
“Dylan, Liam.” Ben nodded at them. “Tiger. How you doing, big guy?”
“My cub, Seth, is beginning to talk.” Tiger’s pride beamed from him. For a man in a leather jacket that stretched over a huge but tight body, with a face that terrified many, he looked almost sappy.
“Beginning to, he says.” Liam Morrissey approached the porch. He spoke with an Irish accent that Ben suspected he exaggerated. “Seth said his first word a few weeks ago and hasn’t ceased gabbing since. He’s under the bad influence of my nephew, who hasn’t stopped talking in twenty-three years.”
“How is Connor?” Ben liked the kid, who would soon be as intimidating and terrifying as Liam and Dylan, if genetics ran true.
“Oh, he’s getting by. He’ll be approaching his Transition soon, I’m thinking. A bit early for a Shifter, but the lad has always been precocious. The shite will hit the fan then. Maybe we can all move in here, and leave Connor the bungalow.” Liam ran a thoughtful gaze over the house.
Dylan hadn’t spoken at all. It was Liam’s way to chat and put people at their ease before Dylan got down to business. Tiger … well, Tiger always did his own thing.
“This is Rhianne,” Ben said before Liam could wind down and let Dylan take over. “Rhianne mac Aodha. Daughter of Lady Aisling.” And don’t you forget it.
Liam chuckled. His handsome smile and blue eyes usually had ladies melting. Another reason, probably, that Dylan had brought him along.
Rhianne had stiffened, her hand clenching Ben’s. Her first taste of Shifters likely wasn’t what she’d expected. If she’d been told they were the hoch alfar’s tamed beasts, she must be in for a shock. Shifters had never been that, no matter what the hoch alfar thought.
“We know who she is, lad.” Liam put a hand to his chest. “I’m Liam Morrissey, my lady, at your service. The quiet one is me dad, Dylan, and the seriously quiet one is Tiger. We call him that because, you know, he’s a tiger.”
“My mother has mentioned him.” Rhianne’s voice was a bit hoarse, but she held her head high, determined not to be intimidated. “And Dylan Morrissey.”
“May we speak?” Dylan indicated the porch. The three Shifters had halted at the bottom of the porch steps, being familiar with the house and its arbitrary obstructiveness.
“Come on up.” Ben led Rhianne to the porch swing. “Let’s see how far it lets you go.”
Tiger, who never hesitated over anything, climbed the stairs without impediment. He gazed down at Rhianne for a time while she, brave lady, met his eyes. Her hand squeezed Ben’s, and he squeezed back, there for her.
Tiger’s brows came together. “You are troubled.”
“You think?” Ben spoke before Rhianne could. “She’s been abducted, held prisoner, threatened, yanked here without anyone asking if she’s okay with it, and now being given the eyeball by you three.”
Tiger sent Rhianne a slow nod, as though she’d answered herself. “The trouble is deeper
. Dylan is not your leader.”
With that pronouncement, he moved to the end of the porch and lounged against the railing, positioning himself to be the lookout.
Liam glanced uneasily at the porch ceiling as he mounted the steps. He carefully didn’t touch the railings. When Dylan’s foot brushed the bottom stair, the house trembled. The shutters banged and the rose vines rustled ominously.
“Maybe you should stay down there, Dad,” Liam said quickly.
Dylan halted in irritation. “I’ve slept here many a night,” he reminded the house. The shaking and banging ceased, but when Dylan put his boot back on the step, it began again.
Dylan growled, his eyes becoming the flat, slitted eyes of the wild cat. But he withdrew his foot and remained on the ground. The house settled down, emitting a creak that sounded a little bit smug.
Liam kept to the third step of the five, resting one arm on the railing. Ben made a show of settling Rhianne on the porch swing, plumping the pillows around her before taking a seat next to her. Not only did they sit hip to hip, but he’d be able to jump in front of her if one of the Shifters decided to try anything.
“So, what’s this about?” Ben asked.
Dylan kept his lips firmly closed, his intimidation tactic. Tiger likewise stayed silent, but that was just Tiger.
Liam had ridden along to be the mouthpiece of Dylan, Ben decided. Though Liam was his own man—if he didn’t agree with his father, he wouldn’t back him.
“This is about a Tuil Erdannan coming through a Fae gate close to Dad’s and my territory.” Liam held up a quick hand. “Not to worry, lass. We don’t see you as an enemy. But ’tis a strange thing.”
Ben scowled. “Stop trying to sound like a leprechaun. What do you want, Liam?”
Tiger turned slightly, just enough to watch Ben. While Dylan might be in charge and a huge badass, it was Tiger Ben needed to worry about.
Liam grinned, ever affable. “Sorry.” The accent faded somewhat. “You’re welcome to stay with the Austin Shifters, Rhianne, who will defend you to the death. Or here, in the house with a big personality. Or …” Liam rubbed his chin. “You could do us a massive favor.”
The Last Warrior: Shifters Unbound Book 13 Page 4